“Absolutely the Internet is having an impact,” said Grant Griffin, executive director of the Kitsap Visitor and Convention Bureau. “We deal with tourism-related businesses for the most part and I’d say 99 percent of the companies we work with have a Web site.

“In this arena if you don’t have a Web site, you’re nuts.”

The World Wide Web has made some people’s jobs easier and at the same time less predictable.

Web sites have meant basic questions are diverted and answered.

“There’s lots of hits to our Web site, meaning, in effect, we have to handle fewer calls and letters,” said Kevin Dwyer, director of the Bainbridge Island Chamber of Commerce. “It (the site) is not real sexy, but there’s a lot of good information.

Bainbridge island’s Web site, www.bainbridgechamber.com has been up for two years. Other chambers of commerce took to the Web more quickly. A tour of the area’s major chamber Web sites (see list below) can answer any question or provide a contact to the answer. No matter the weather or location, communities have started to pull in surfers with the growing wave of information available.

The Gig Harbor Peninsula Area Chamber of Commerce knows the power of the Internet and has also invested a lot of time and thought putting together a cohesive Maritime City theme.

The site uses the same art and language it uses in magazines and newspapers to give one overall impression. And it has pictures of many events throughout the year. Another site that uses pictures to highlight fun times is keyfair.com, the site for the one-year-old Key Peninsula Community Fair.

Jean Boyle knows about time spent improving the Kitsap Visitor Bureau’s site. At the most basic level, she is the person responsible for a great deal of people’s perception of Kitsap County. Boyle, the KVB’s director of tourism development, puts the descriptions of all the area’s cities and their attractions on the official state tourism Web site, www.experiencewashington.com.

“Of course I can’t do it all myself,” she said. “I work with chambers and others and ask them to write a lot of it or give me tips or something. I know the area but it’s a collective effort.

“It’s more and more a key in everything we do. It’s very top of mind.”
Experiment

The Kitsap Visitor’s Bureau has seen a cause-and-effect relationship in the how advertising increases the high traffic to its Web site Griffin said they tried a round of print and television advertising, citing its 800 number and Web address.

“E-mails and hits to our Web site went up and the telephone calls were stagnant,” he said. “So we did another test with just the Web address and we definitely saw a spike. In this business it can be hard to track absolutes in why people do things, but that seemed pretty clear.”

Still, Griffin doesn’t think the bureau’s site is perfect.

The four-year-old Visitkitsap.com is ripe for a remodel, Boyle said, and its been planned for the last year. If it isn’t already there a searchable database of companies and services will be an additional use for the online county presence.

Griffin has spent considerable time convincing others that developers should use the Internet to its fullest — not only words but scenic pictures, online reservations and registrations and even small movies.

Online chambers
A tour of the following Chambers of Commerce
and tourism directories can answer a lot of questions:
www.bremertonchamber.org
www.kingstonwa.com
www.masoncountytourism.com
www.portorchard.com
www.silverdalechamber.com
www.kitsap.net/business
www.gigharborchamber.com
www.experiencewashington.com
www.visitkitsap.com